The present invention relates generally to connector housings, and more particularly to connector housings used for connectors with terminals supported by wafers.
Connectors are well known in the art. As data rates have increased and stacked connectors have become more common, connectors have begun to utilize terminal assemblies that are inserted into a connector housing rather than single terminals stitched into the housing. These terminal assemblies often are formed as wafers that have a plastic frame that supports a plurality of conductive terminals. Thus, a connector may include a number of wafers supported by a housing. One problem encountered in the electronic industry is that the trend toward reducing the size of the electronic devices can lead to the use of connector housings that have reduced structural reliability.
Connector housings tend to be molded from a plastic resin and at present, care must be taken to ensure that the housing walls are made thick enough to prevent the walls from warping or bowing and either complicating, or preventing all together the insertion of all of the terminal assemblies into the housing at once. If the walls are too thin, they tend to bow and thus reduce the dimensions of the housing interior to a point where the terminal assemblies can not be inserted as a mass but need to be inserted individually with pressure applied to the housing walls to counteract their bow. If tolerances are provided to allow the wafers to be inserted, then the position of the wafers with respect to the housing is difficult to control. Therefore, further improvements in the connector housing would be appreciated be certain individuals.